Editorial Cartoons by Graeme MacKay

iceberg

The niqab is a distraction. Voters should focus on real issues

An editorial that appeared in the Globe & Mail 10 days ago is as pertinent today as it was when it was first published on October 1.

This test of endurance known as the 2015 election campaign has presented Canadians with plenty of serious issues to consider. The economy, for starters. How does a country that benefited from an oil boom maintain jobs and growth when the price of crude oil plummets for an extended period?

There are also big fiscal choices: Does Canada need budgets in surplus, or is it wiser to run small deficits and spend more on infrastructure now, when interest rates are at record lows?

How about the environment? Should Ottawa have a national plan to substantially reduce carbon emissions, or should it leave the field largely to the provinces?

Or foreign policy: Should Canada be bombing the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, or should we be focusing on training local troops and delivering humanitarian aid? And what is the right number of Syrian refugees to accept?

For the first seven weeks of the 11-week campaign, voters and candidates mostly focused on these and other pertinent issues. But with the Oct. 19 vote now just weeks away, this election is at risk of being overtaken by a single emotional issue that has no tangible bearing on the lives and well-being of Canadians. We’re talking about the niqab.

The Conservative Party and its leader Stephen Harper want the niqab banned at citizenship ceremonies. The Bloc Québécois, desperate for votes, demand the same. Both parties falsely accuse Muslim women who wear the face coverings of “hiding their identities.” Mr. Harper’s focus on this issue has begun to open up a little daylight between his party and the Liberals and New Democrats, and he’s pushing it harder than ever.

Many believe that a veiled female face goes against Canadian values. In a free society, they are entitled to that belief. But Canada’s religious freedoms mean a woman can wear a niqab in public. This is a non-issue that has no impact whatsoever on the vast majority of the population, yet it risks turning into a deciding factor in the election.

If you support the ban, ask yourself: Have you ever been to a citizenship ceremony? Do you actively follow who is being sworn in as Canadian citizens every week? Had you ever given this a moment’s thought before the Tories and the BQ made it an issue?

Of course not. The niqab is a distraction – a culture war fabricated to take voters’ minds off the real and complex issues in this election. Don’t fall for it. Wearing a veil is one thing – wearing a blindfold is another altogether. (Source: Globe & Mail)

Feds can’t avoid $1-billion deficit, budget officer says

The federal Conservatives will fail to accomplish their key promise of balancing Ottawa’s books this year, instead running a $1-billion budget deficit in 2015, the parliamentary budget officer says.

Budget watchdog Jean-Denis Fréchette said Wednesday that the economic picture had changed since the Conservatives’ budget in April, which predicted surpluses in 2015-16 and over the next several years.

“Economic data has since indicated declines in real GDP (gross domestic product) that were not reflected in the government’s assumptions,” Fréchette said.

He noted that the Bank of Canada, in its quarterly forecast last week, had chopped its prediction for economic growth this year from 2 per cent to about 1 per cent.

The worse than expected economic conditions will reduce federal tax revenues, trimming $3.9 billion from Ottawa’s fiscal accounts in 2015, the budget watchdog said. But taking into account the $1 billion set aside as a rainy-day fund by Finance Minister Joe Oliver and factoring in other impacts, Fréchette said the Conservatives will run a $1-billion deficit this year.

With an eye on the Oct. 19 election, opposition parties seized on the report to slam the Conservatives’ handling of the economy. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised for years that 2015 would be the year his government puts an end to a seven-year string of budget deficits.

“That was supposed to be the Conservatives’ hallmark branding, wasn’t it, balanced budget?” NDP leader Thomas Mulcair asked during a campaign-style swing through southern Ontario. “We now know that’s not going to be the case.”

Mulcair said Harper put the economy at risk by relying too much on the oil and gas industry as an engine of growth. “The Conservatives put all of our economic eggs in the resource extraction basket, and now that that sector is having considerable difficulty, it’s affecting everything else in the Canadian economy.” (Source: Toronto Star)

Ontario ombudsman to probe MPAC

Ontario’s ombudsman is investigating the corporation that assigns values to private property for the purposes of municipal taxation. Andre Marin says there is a lack of transparency in how the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, or MPAC, arrives at its decisions.

Marin says the complaints meter in his office has moved into the red-zone over MPAC’s ways and there is deep-rooted dissatisfaction over property assessments.

He calls the corporation aloof and mysterious and says citizens are dazed and confused over their inability to get the corporation to reveal basic criteria on how values are set.

Marin says he knows something is wrong when the mayor of Sarnia refers to MPAC’s methods as Monty Python-like.

The ombudsman says he’ll investigate a number of areas, including MPAC’s refusal to adhere to a successful appeal of a property’s valuation in subsequent assessments.

The investigation is expected to last four to six months. (Source: Ottawa Citizen)